(a) Technical Field
The present invention relates to a fuel-cell vehicle, and more particularly, to a safety control system and method for hydrogen charging of a fuel-cell vehicle, which can improve safety of the fuel-cell vehicle during hydrogen charging by turning off the ignition of the fuel-cell vehicle during hydrogen charging of the fuel-cell vehicle.
(b) Background Art
Unlike an internal-combustion engine vehicle driven using rotational power of the internal-combustion engine, which is generated by explosive power obtained via combustion of fossil fuel and oxygen in the air, a fuel-cell vehicle is driven by utilizing rotational power of an electric motor driven via electric energy generated in a fuel-cell stack. The fuel-cell stack, which is a main power source of the fuel-cell vehicle, generates electric energy through an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen supplied by a hydrogen supplier including a hydrogen tank or a reformer in the vehicle and oxygen in the air supplied by an air supplier such as a blower or a compressor. Therefore, in the fuel-cell vehicle, it is important to store hydrogen, which is a type of fuel or gas, in a safe and compact manner. To this end, various hydrogen storing techniques have been developed which achieve both an increase in the traveling distance of the vehicle and safety of the vehicle.
Among those techniques, hydrogen may be stored as liquid hydrogen in the vehicle or may be occluded in an occlusion alloy, but such a scheme has a problem which cannot be solved by current techniques in terms of natural evaporation or sorption quantity. As a result, hydrogen is generally charged and used in a hydrogen tank which has a light weight and high strength and can endure high pressure. To secure a sufficient cabin space and a sufficient traveling distance, a hydrogen tank capable of filling hydrogen therein with high pressure, such as 350 bar or 700 bar, is widely used.
In the case of a general gasoline vehicle or diesel vehicle, there are often no regulations or laws that require the ignition to be off or that prevent the driver from turning the ignition on while the fuel is being pumped into the gas tank even though it is highly recommend drivers turn off the ignition while pumping gas for safety reasons.
For a fuel-cell vehicle, however, laws and regulations that restrict operation of a propulsion system and vehicle movement during fuel charging have in fact been enacted. As a result, ignition control logic that would normally be applied to a gasoline vehicle or diesel vehicle can not be applied to a fuel cell vehicle while still abiding by the new laws and regulations.
In particular, conventionally, when the ignition of the fuel-cell vehicle is controlled, a device for sensing fuel charging has not included, and as a result vehicle ignition cannot be restricted systematically during fuel charging and thus the law and regulations may be violated in the process.
As such, the fuel-cell vehicle should satisfy the related laws and regulations that prescribe that during the progress of fuel charging, the propulsion system of the fuel-cell vehicle can not be operated and movement of the vehicle is not be allowed. However, logic for sensing the progress of hydrogen charging has currently not been applied to a conventional fuel-cell vehicle, thus failing to satisfy the related laws and regulations.